Much like raising a child, it takes a community to create a hot rod—so you know this Ford was built with a lot of help. The chrome plating came from a shop that needed an axle fixed, a friend traded the Strombergs to repair a roof on his ’59 Chevy, and the interior came from an upholstery shop that needed a transmission fixed. When Tom Leonardo couldn’t do something himself, he traded, bartered, or swapped services to build this blue ’32 for $4,800—less than we’ve paid for non-running heaps.

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I do all my own everything.

Tom, a tall, slim Southern California native who’s always dressed in a clean white shirt tucked into blue jeans, has worked as a plumber most his life. He doesn’t have a lot but takes pride in what he has. His passion for hot rods manifested itself into 20 pieced-together cars piled in his backyard and handful of machining tools. “The only reason I buy old cars is because I couldn’t afford new ones,” Tom says.

3/12This 327 was taken from a ’63 Impala parts car and, other than the cam, is stock. Tom did the head work and assembly himself in the shed behind his house. The firewall started out as a scrap piece of stainless steel that he had leftover from work. He polished it to a mirror finish and cut it to fit.

When Tom wasn’t trading work for parts, he utilized leftover plumbing supplies: stainless steel pipe for the frame horns, copper tubing from an industrial kitchen-range hood as the fuel lines, and the radiator hoses are “two P-traps, like you find underneath a sink. I flipped them, turned them, and welded them together,” says Tom. “A lot of old parts and pieces are from my job. I put it all together myself. There’s not a whole lot [of money] in the car.”

Tom purchased the Ford almost 40 years ago for less than $1,000—when untouched ’32s were more plentiful. The owner only sold him the body and drivetrain, but Tom didn’t mind because he already had the right chassis. He stashed the ’32 body between his Model A roadster and ’37 Ford, which were surrounded by a pile of swap-meet finds in his garage. After sitting for a couple years he pieced together a roadworthy, primered, unchopped hot rod with wire wheels and full fenders. He drove it for a few years, and then once again shuffled it back into his garage, moving onto other projects. “I let it sit for a long time and kids would come around wanting to buy it,” Tom says.

7/12The seat is from a ’31 Ford that’s been wrapped in white vinyl with a Sky Blue Sparkle Vinyl that’s more common on a bass boat than a hot rod.

He pulled the ’32 out of his rotating collection of cars for a makeover five years ago. He started with a 2½-inch chop, “I was hesitant to cut it because it was such a nice body. Oh well,” says Tom.

When he originally purchased the Ford he’d left the contemporary engine with the previous owner because he desired a period-correct hot rod. “I wanted it back to the way it was when I was a kid in the mid-’60s,” he says. Using a parts car was another big cost saver. “I ruined a nice ’63 Impala,” Tom confesses. He pulled the 327 and Muncie four-speed from the car for his ’32. As far as he’s concerned, it’s “the perfect mid-’60s hot rod combination.”

With only a vague mental image of what he wanted, he built the project in steps as money and time allowed. After the chop came rebuilding the engine. National Automotive and Machine Shop in Lake Elsinore, California, bored the 327 0.030 over, then Tom assembled it, finishing it with a 280-degree Isky flat-tappet cam—another speed part from years of swap-meet finds—and flattop pistons resulting in 10.5:1 compression. Outside, the engine received a makeover by way of white enamel.

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“Those Chevys have their seeping points. It’s easy to find a leak when it’s white,” Tom says. He built the headers himself, one bend at a time, and when he couldn’t bend a particular piece he went to another friend’s shop, Anchor Muffler in Anaheim, California, with a bent wire in the preferred shape.

With a new drivetrain, the primer-brown paint had to go. Tom visited hot rod friend, painter Stan Betz of Betz Speed and Color in Orange, California. The two mixed a bucket of paint in the alley behind the shop. After they found the right mix, Stan tossed in a bottle of flake. Now it was perfect. Tom painted the coupe in his backyard, spending the following weeks buffing and polishing.

I just get in it and drive. Stop when it needs gas.

Conveniently, Stan’s neighbor happened to be an upholstery shop. Tom struck a deal with the owner for transmission repair in exchange for upholstery of the door panels, a headliner, and a ’31 Ford bench seat. Tom wanted white vinyl mixed with a metallic-flake blue that you’d normally see on a bass fishing boat. “The upholstery shop kept asking, ‘Are you sure? Are you brave enough to put that in there?’” After finishing the paint, Tom says he was disappointed with the lack of metallic flake. “So I got brave with the upholstery and put the flake inside the car instead.”

When Tom finished the build, he ran it without mufflers. “I’m a little too old for that noise anymore,” he says. Now it has small glass pack muffler hidden underneath. Tom says, “I just get in it and drive, and stop when it needs gas.”

12/12Tom is a reflection of his car, straight from the '60s. Always in blue jeans and a white shirt, he's modest and unconsciously stylish.